Broadband News

Looking deeper into rural broadband speeds

The Local Government Association has upped the ante in it broadband campaign now looking at getting speeds in broadband advertising changed and to eradicate 'up to' and replace it with an average speed.

Part of the campaign highlights that remote rural areas can suffer more congestion at peak times and thus lower speeds, but this is based on Ofcom research from 2014 and while this may be true for those who pick the wrong provider on an IPStream only exchange since WBC ADSL2+ is still being added to rural exchanges many may be able to get something better compared to the 2 year old Ofcom statement. Critically for those on rural exchanges it is important to check what options are available as while LLU expansion has been stagnant for a couple of years, the WBC IP network available from BT Wholesale can offer better peak time performance and has a much better DLM system than the old IPStream services (e.g. IP Profile system is dynamic rather than taking days to recover from short blips in connection speed).

"Councils are working hard to ensure everyone has good quality internet access.

Good digital connectivity is a vital element of everyday life for residents and can help them cut household bills, shop online for cheaper goods, stay in touch with distant relatives, access their bank accounts and even run their own businesses. As central and local government services increasingly become ‘digital by default', more people will need to have faster and more reliable speeds.

The headline ‘up to' download speed, which can be advertised legally, is misleading and does not reflect the reality of broadband service received across the country.

Broadband users deserve greater honesty and openness about the download and upload speeds they are likely to receive depending on their location."

Cllr Mark Hawthorne, Chairman of the LGA's People and Places Board

While Ofcom concentrates on monitoring a few thousand broadband connections and modelling those to get a national picture and is expanding the footprint of its monitoring boxes to more rural areas, our years of speed test data mean we can actually give a good idea of the picture in rural areas and as our results are showing user experience it covers issues such as congestion and people on older slower services being stuck with slow old Wi-Fi routers.

Area

Superfast coverage(30 Mbps and faster)

Average Download Speed

Average Upload Speed

Download Profile of Tests in Q2/2016

31/07/15

31/07/16

Q2/2015

Q2/2016

Q2/2015

Q2/2016

GB Urban
Less Sparse
70.8% premises

94.7%

96.6%

27.8 Mbps

26.5 Mbps

5.9 Mbps

4.8 Mbps

GB Town and Fringe
Less Sparse
9.2% premises

80.1%

87.1%

19.2 Mbps

19.9 Mbps

4.4 Mbps

4.1 Mbps

GB Village
Less Sparse
6.1% premises

53.7%

66.4%

13.2 Mbps

15 Mbps

3.6 Mbps

3.6 Mbps

GB Urban
Area Sparse
3.9% premises

93.6%

95.9%

26.8 Mbps

25.4 Mbps

5 Mbps

4.5 Mbps

GB Town and Fringe
Area Sparse
3.2% premises

89.8%

93.8%

25.9 Mbps

24.3 Mbps

5.4 Mbps

4.4 Mbps

GB Hamlet
Less Sparse
2.7% premises

33.6%

40.6%

11 Mbps

11.2 Mbps

3.1 Mbps

2.4 Mbps

GB Village
Area Sparse
1.5% premises

63.7%

66.4%

14.5 Mbps

16 Mbps

3.2 Mbps

3.3 Mbps

GB Hamlet
Area Sparse
0.7% premises

37.7%

45.3%

10.3 Mbps

10.6 Mbps

2.3 Mbps

2.1 Mbps

NOTE: The figures above include England, Wales and Scotland, the ONS definitions for Northern Ireland do not easily align and thus are dealt with separately. When we publish UK wide data obviously Northern Ireland does feature and coverage and speed data is on our coverage and speed tracker

The relationship between higher levels of superfast coverage and average speeds is clear to see, but also highlights the danger that even when advertising uses average speeds due to the high speeds and large proportion of the population in urban areas, a UK wide average speed is still not going to mean too much to those in rural areas. The drop in speeds between Q2/2015 and Q3/2016 in some areas is a reflection of the changing demographics of how people use the Internet, i.e. more tests (as is day to day use) are on tablets and mobiles and complaints of low speeds from Virgin Media users are on a rise, plus as some people cut back on utilities spending people may be downgrading from the fastest services to one that is a bit cheaper but still adequate for their needs.

The speed profiles showing the speeds people are using is not the full story, as when we split out the different technologies you can see that while VDSL2 is often berated over its distance limitations for those ordering and using the service there is not a massive difference between the different parts of Great Britain.

Area

FTTH AverageQ2/2016

Cable AverageQ2/2016

FTTC AverageQ2/2016

ADSL/ADSL2+ AverageQ2/2016

Down

Upload

Down

Upload

Down

Upload

Down

Upload

GB Urban
Less Sparse
70.8% premises

82.2 Mbps

39.8 Mbps

48 Mbps

5.9 Mbps

29.9 Mbps

7.4 Mbps

7.1 Mbps

0.6 Mbps

GB Town and Fringe
Less Sparse
9.2% premises

62.4 Mbps

20 Mbps

50.5 Mbps

6.3 Mbps

29.8 Mbps

7.4 Mbps

7.6 Mbps

0.6 Mbps

GB Village
Less Sparse
6.1% premises

58.5 Mbps

30.7 Mbps

47.4 Mbps

7.8 Mbps

28 Mbps

6.9 Mbps

5.2 Mbps

0.6 Mbps

GB Urban
Area Sparse
3.9% premises

109.9 Mbps

55.8 Mbps

46.4 Mbps

5.9 Mbps

29.4 Mbps

7.4 Mbps

7.9 Mbps

0.6 Mbps

GB Town and Fringe
Area Sparse
3.2% premises

87.4 Mbps

15.9 Mbps

52.1 Mbps

6.6 Mbps

29.5 Mbps

7.1 Mbps

7.8 Mbps

0.6 Mbps

GB Hamlet
Less Sparse
2.7% premises

56.7 Mbps

24.3 Mbps

41.4 Mbps

6.1 Mbps

27 Mbps

6.7 Mbps

4.7 Mbps

0.5 Mbps

GB Village
Area Sparse
1.5% premises

57.5 Mbps

16.3 Mbps

47.4 Mbps

6.5 Mbps

28.4 Mbps

6.8 Mbps

6.5 Mbps

0.5 Mbps

GB Hamlet
Area Sparse
0.7% premises

54.2 Mbps

15.9 Mbps

n/a

n/a

28 Mbps

6.7 Mbps

4.7 Mbps

0.5 Mbps

At the end of the day the most important thing is what speeds a provider gives a user as part of the ordering process which is a key component the voluntary speeds code of practice. Admittedly some providers slip in language that can include the word guarantee when in fact on a best efforts consumer service you cannot guarantee speeds and they don't all use the same criteria for ranges quoted.

Comments

Average speed is just as misleading as up to speed.
Why not simply compel the ISP to provide the BT ADSL checker test result before the order is processed?

chilting

over 2 years ago

Hi Broadband Watchers.
I think you will find that the BT Fibre Checker gives a fair banding EG 13----15 meg on the Post Code on which ever service the customers requires. I could be incorrect but other ISP,s feed of this data and sell on their judgement so it comes under the heading buyer beware.

Blackmamba

over 2 years ago

@blackmamba
What are you on about?

baby_frogmella

over 2 years ago

@chilting

ISPs do have to provide individual speed estimates when ordering. This is about advertising, which is inherently broad based.

TheEulerID

over 2 years ago

Believe blackmamba is referring to the wholesale checkers that providers use to base the individual sales estimate on.

For FTTC, the variation between providers is down to their interpretation of the A/B ranges etc

andrew

over 2 years ago

Hi Baby-frogmella.
Just check on the new BT Openreach fibre option and take a Post Code and you will find that the banding may be different on the Addresses list do not use a number. The banding gap will be either which system you go via CN21 or CN20 plus the type of service you require. Please remember the line speed is determined by lenght and its quality.

Blackmamba

over 2 years ago

Care to explain how 21CN versus 20CN makes a difference to VDSL2 estimates, when it does not use the older 20CN backhaul network at all.

andrew

over 2 years ago

"At the end of the day the most important thing is what speeds a provider gives a user as part of the ordering process which is a key component the voluntary speeds code of practice."
This is the only meaningful measure, but, for long lines like mine on VDSL it seems to be very inaccurate.
The problem seems to be quite a lot of the public have no idea, only a couple of weeks back one of the lads at work told me he was thinking of changing ISP's so that he could get up to 17mb instead of the 1.5mb he was getting at present.

burble

over 2 years ago

@ TheEulerID
Yes, my point is that the speed available has to be quoted to the customer before the ordering process begins.
It would be better if speed wasn't mentioned at all in the advertising. The ISP could invite the customer for a free appraisal/quote for all the options available to them at their location.

chilting

over 2 years ago

Hi Broadband Watchers.
The onus is on the customer to select the ISP,s (500) on the Post Code in the Exchange area marked RED, Yellow, Green ( TBB maps). The service on Openreach metallic line will be determined by the Post Code status and this will change over time plus the ISP services ( network). I feel advertising should be on the traffic light system as above.

Blackmamba

over 2 years ago

We still have the issue of poor wiring affecting speeds (especially with self install). And which speed are we talking - sync or throughput? And if it's throughput then each ISP has to show their actual results for an area rather than sync speeds (and how do you measure actual throughput - and to what servers?).

ian72

over 2 years ago

taken to extreme an ISP could offer "Broadband, up to 10Gb/s - depending on how much you want to pay" Elsewhere in "another place" someone raised the point that in a Sale advertised as up to "50% off" we don't see many complaints that the item purchased was actually only has 30% discount.

Gadget

over 2 years ago

If BT skips a cabinet due to someone claiming they owned the spot of land, what's the chances of BT trying again?

Or does it mean no upgrade ever?

DrMikeHuntHurtz

over 2 years ago

Depends on how busy planning teams are and whether land is or becomes available

andrew

over 2 years ago

Hi Broadband Watchers.
I am glad to see that TBB is advertising the GREEN post Codes to the MPs and also the post code that could be cover by GFast if the service is required on Demand my view is the take up will be low on units that are close to the FTTC time will tell.

Blackmamba

over 2 years ago

G.fast is not likely to be an on demand product, it will either be available or not available.

andrew

over 2 years ago

Blackmamba
you sound like a salesman who uses the upto advertising :P (red yellow green ?)

before you sign up for broadband the ISP has to tell you your real estimated speed, i found the estimated speeds based on postcode the ISP provide to be for the most part accurate (ADSL on the lower side and VDSL on the higher side of the estimate)

for virgin media (and real fiber broadband) that mostly does not apply as they are limited by what profile they sell you and local congestion (which is the main issue some local streets have witch virgin really should fix)

leexgx

over 2 years ago

Hi Leexgx.
I am not trading in snake oil but am trying to sell TBB system RED Yellow Green because they are tracking BT/ Openreach figures which many MPs do not recognise the % results they did get it wrong in the exit vote.

Blackmamba

over 2 years ago

"Average"???? Meaningless. Are they using mean, mode or median.

steamingdave

about 1 year ago

Whether its average or up to it won't help the customer get a better speed, and if a low speed will pay just the same price. I pay for up to 17mbps - I'm actually lucky if I get 2mbps and at peak times I'm lucky if a web page opens within a couple of minutes, but I pay the same as the guy who gets 17mbps......